I’ve called those movement conservatives who think that successful policy execution–in peace or war–is about “will”, as opposed to, let’s say, execution, PeterPanconservatives. Atrios has a very good explanation of why they believe so strongly in will–their own personal experience:

I’ve been thinking about about certain Bushies – Bush himself, obviously, and Condi Rice – who seem to honestly believe that “will” and “resolve” are the way one gets things done instead of, you know, actually getting stuff done. I’ve finally decided that they’re basically people have always gotten where they were by manipulating others into doing things for them, and so for them getting things done is all about wanting it to happen bad enough.

While one can certainly go through life quite well getting others to take care of your bullshit for you, this type of thing does not really scale upwards to the level of global diplomacy very well. One can’t will success in Iraq, Maliki’s “resolve” can’t actually cause people to stop killing each other there, etc.

I think something else plays into this too: no one has ever said no to them. That also makes it easy to believe in “resolve” and “will.”

I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that we’re stuck with Bush’s skullduggery until we have a chance to vote him out. Even if Reid/Pelosi happened to grow a pair of stones and start issuing some hard hitting legislation, the Dems’ majority in the Senate is hair-thin and Lieberman will jump sides at the drop of a hat. Until November 2008, the best we can hope for is to temper this administrations worst excesses.

This would imply that peter pan conservatism is the antithesis of the Geek ethos, which is very DIY, very much about working with the real world and coaxing it to do what you want (working with things rather than people). I wonder if this is why so many scientists and Geeks are politically left-leaning?

Well, I’m no scientist- just an iggerant uneddicated mere technician (perhaps that qualifies for Geek status), but in nineteen years of solving problems in relatively complex electronic and electromechanical systems I’ve learned something about the value of “will”.

When you’re trying to solve a problem in the physical world, will has no value at all. What has always served me well is willingness: the willingness to throw away potential explanations when I’ve tested them and proved them wrong. Willingness to keep on gathering information and thinking about it until I’ve found another testable hypothesis that appears consistent with the data, and on and on until I finally reach the correct solution to the problem.

Insisting that the world just has to conform to your pretty theory irrespective of what your test results are trying to tell you won’t get your console or workstation fixed, nor your economy or your war. This is something which I’ve had my face rubbed in nearly every day of my entire working life, as has anyone who fixes things for a living. How odd that our supposed “elites” seem incapable of grasping it. How especially odd that someone, like Rice, who spent years in grad school studying the Soviet Union wouldn’t understand it, since the history of the USSR is one big object lesson in what happens when you privilege received belief over observable results.

The behavior of true-believer pols makes me wish ol’ Ambrose Bierce was still around, ’cause I’ve got another entry for the Devils Dictionary:

Ideology: a type of vaccination which confers near-perfect immunity against empirical learning.

“How especially odd that someone, like Rice, who spent years in grad school studying the Soviet Union wouldn’t understand it, since the history of the USSR is one big object lesson in what happens when you privilege received belief over observable results.”

The Cold War might have immunized her against reality – the collapse of the USSR was a Bad Thing for the GOP. It was nice to have around. And her career, from what I’ve heard, has basically been apparatchnik. She’s never held a job where she had to produce.